(03-23-2015, 12:24 PM)Rila Wrote: After two months as an active roleplayer on Balmung, this is something I've really struggled with, and I'm wondering if anyone here has the same issue.
I love the idea of RP. I do. I enjoy reading transcripts and hearing about other people's characters, and am excited about the backstories and personalities I've come up myself. It's safe to say that thinking about RP is one of my favorite FFXIV-related past times.
But then I try to actually RP, and that's when it goes to shit.
I'm not a great writer, and when I'm in an RP, I become extremely aware of this fact. I see other people come out with these delightful, interesting and well-written paragraphs in less than a minute and when it's my turn to respond, I panic. It can take me a few minutes to give a satisfactory response, and even then it's not impressive writing. Despite the fact that I've given both my characters a lot of thought, they still seem to come out sounding like caricatures. And the more I panic, the more wooden they seem to sound, the slower my responses tend to get, and the more I panic.
Like logically I know RP is not supposed to be a competition, but it really feels like an exam that I didn't study for a lot of the time.
Does all this sound familiar to anyone? If so, did it get better over time? Have you found anything that helps with this?
This is me all over, especially with characters I haven't RP'd very much or if I have difficulty understanding one(*cough* Andre*cough*). Attempting in-game RP is worst of all since I have little time to react and sometimes, if there has been a bit of a pause, I feel obliged to speak again even if my character wouldn't really have anything to add -expecting the other person to continue.
What's worse is that I am terrible with coming up with conversation irl. That is, with strangers/people I don't know well anyways. So anything more lenient toward carsual encounters or scenes make it difficult because even if my character is supposed to be amiable and chatty... I can't really force that.
Clover Blake is my RP partner and at times I honestly don't know how or why she puts up with me. I can't write nearly as eloquently as her. I tend to make my writing sound forced and clunky by trying to compensate with over-description or technical description(like with movements when I am trying to make sure the read sees exactly what I do)... and that just doesn't work; hers on the other hand always sounds so natural to me. I just don't know how to do it.
Characters: Andre Winter (Hy'ur) / K'nahli Yohko (Miqo'te)